Don’t long for “the good old days.” This is not wise.
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For you do not ask wisely about this.
- KJV Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.
- BSB Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is unwise of you to ask about this.
- NKJV Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.
- NASB Do not say, “Why is it that the former days were better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Don't ask why the former days were better than now, for that is not a wise question. It matters because idealizing the past breeds discontent and ingratitude toward God's present providence.
Overview
The Preacher rebukes nostalgic complaining that the 'good old days' were better, exposing it as unwise. Such longing distorts reality and questions God's ordering of the present. Wisdom instead trusts God's hand in every season (3:1-8), receiving today as His gift and walking by faith rather than romanticizing a vanished past.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Ps 14:2–3Yahweh looked down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who understood, who sought after God.
- Judg 6:13Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”
- Rom 1:22–32Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
- Gen 6:11–12The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
- Isa 50:1Yahweh says, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away? or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and your mother was put away for your transgressions.
- Jer 44:17–19But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil.
- Rom 3:9–19What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.
How Ecclesiastes 7:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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